Learning Relative Gene Expression Trends from Pathology Images in Spatial Transcriptomics

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nishimura, Kazuya, Hirose, Haruka, Bise, Ryoma, Shiku, Kaito, Kojima, Yasuhiro
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Nishimura, Kazuya
Hirose, Haruka
Bise, Ryoma
Shiku, Kaito
Kojima, Yasuhiro
author_facet Nishimura, Kazuya
Hirose, Haruka
Bise, Ryoma
Shiku, Kaito
Kojima, Yasuhiro
contents Gene expression estimation from pathology images has the potential to reduce the RNA sequencing cost. Point-wise loss functions have been widely used to minimize the discrepancy between predicted and absolute gene expression values. However, due to the complexity of the sequencing techniques and intrinsic variability across cells, the observed gene expression contains stochastic noise and batch effects, and estimating the absolute expression values accurately remains a significant challenge. To mitigate this, we propose a novel objective of learning relative expression patterns rather than absolute levels. We assume that the relative expression levels of genes exhibit consistent patterns across independent experiments, even when absolute expression values are affected by batch effects and stochastic noise in tissue samples. Based on the assumption, we model the relation and propose a novel loss function called STRank that is robust to noise and batch effects. Experiments using synthetic datasets and real datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The code is available at https://github.com/naivete5656/STRank.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_06612
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Learning Relative Gene Expression Trends from Pathology Images in Spatial Transcriptomics
Nishimura, Kazuya
Hirose, Haruka
Bise, Ryoma
Shiku, Kaito
Kojima, Yasuhiro
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Gene expression estimation from pathology images has the potential to reduce the RNA sequencing cost. Point-wise loss functions have been widely used to minimize the discrepancy between predicted and absolute gene expression values. However, due to the complexity of the sequencing techniques and intrinsic variability across cells, the observed gene expression contains stochastic noise and batch effects, and estimating the absolute expression values accurately remains a significant challenge. To mitigate this, we propose a novel objective of learning relative expression patterns rather than absolute levels. We assume that the relative expression levels of genes exhibit consistent patterns across independent experiments, even when absolute expression values are affected by batch effects and stochastic noise in tissue samples. Based on the assumption, we model the relation and propose a novel loss function called STRank that is robust to noise and batch effects. Experiments using synthetic datasets and real datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The code is available at https://github.com/naivete5656/STRank.
title Learning Relative Gene Expression Trends from Pathology Images in Spatial Transcriptomics
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.06612